Ben Edwards, crew Sept 2 UTC 0600 boat time 22.00 Sept 1. Beaufort Sea
We get to Tuktoyaktak ‘tomorrow’. I’m really looking forward to that. And we get to get off the boat, if there’s a food place maybe have dinner off the boat and just walk around. Actually, interesting point, the Inuit towns are all dry. It’s illegal to sell alcohol there but it’s not illegal to buy it. The reason is that the Inuit have no resistance to the drug. It’s never been around before so their physiology isn’t able to cope, they get drunk and addicted very very easily and it kills them if they have too much. So that’s a fairly good reason I think.
When Dad came on board in Point Barrow he brought me a mascot for Barrow and one for Tuk. Two rubber ducks, Rupert Murduck, and Soducku. I’m going to put them on the front when we get to Tuk. Rupert Murduck isn’t actually anything to do with Murdock, he’s just a mermaid duck, a merduck, so you have to call him Rupert. We didn’t have a choice, it had to be done.
In the meantime we’re hoping for aurora. During the North East Passage we had one night where there was an aurora that was worth seeing. Typically, almost everyone was asleep. Only Barbara and Denis saw it and since then I’ve been hoping the clouds will clear and it’ll get dark earlier on my shift so that I can get to see some. No luck so far but I have a promise that if some are seen I’ll be woken up. See you in Tuk, bye.